Aligned With Mars

 
He’s stationed two hundred million miles
from Earth and the time zone difference
is cosmic. She redirects communications
and faces the link-com screen, smiling

her Gaia welcome. The moon relay
comms engages, and the screen flickers,
and two terra hours pass in a heart-
swelled flutter. The screen call barely

holds them, but the synched clocks
are at thirty-two hours six minutes
and counting… their time alone together
on Space Station Aditi, a virtual

plane he designed in the name of
science, but built with stellar sweat
and a galactic link of desire,
two hundred million miles long.











Written for the "In Science We Love!" comp